


General General and Skywalker

by starforged



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Reylo, Canon Compliant, F/M, Finn Becomes a Moisture Farmer, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-TRoS, Rey needs some time to process her life, Spoilers, weird Force stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: Trusk slaps a card down, rattling some machine parts on the table. “Where’s the wife, Skywalker?”Finn frowns. “It’s General.”“General General?”TROS spoilers!
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 111





	General General and Skywalker

He dislikes the desert. It’s too hot. There are _two suns_. Who just has two suns? And the sand, it’s everywhere. It’s in his mouth and his eyes and he doesn’t know how, but it’s in his pants. Against his skin in places nobody wants sand to be. 

But…

It isn’t Jakku, so he supposes he can give Tattooine the smallest of passes. 

Very small. 

The cantina is full of tired humans and aliens, and some that look like they would shoot him if they could. It’s the only place with people. The only place where he can pay for information. 

“Listen, I am _General Finn_. You know, of the Resistance?”

The barkeep, a gaunt Twi’lek with skin the color of dying grass, stares at him. Mostly, that tactic works. General, Resistance. Everyone eats that up, and it makes Finn’s life easier and keeps his pockets kind of heavy. Metaphorically speaking. Because credits didn’t actually have weight. 

“Finn what?” the barkeep finally says in return. It’s not an answer to _his_ question. 

Finn blinks and takes a deep breath. “Just Finn. No, not just. _General_. Point being, I am looking for my friend. A girl. She carries a lasersword. There’s an orange droid. Can you tell me where she is?”

The Twi’lek holds out his hand. Rubs two of his fingers together. 

Finn transfers over the credits. 

“You must mean the Skywalker girl. Homestead has been empty for years, but I knew the family that lived there. Owen and Beru and their kid, Luke.”

This is too much information to receive all at once, and Finn doesn’t know how to process any of it. Skywalker girl? Luke? What?

\--

Rey is waiting for him outside of the little home, built right into the sand. A moisture farm, the barkeep called it. Finn doesn’t get it, but there she is, standing in the middle of the sandy yard. BB-8 beeps with delight and rolls up the incline to him. He asks about Poe, who isn’t here with him. 

Poe is busy. Everyone is busy. 

“I’m confused, you’re a Skywalker now?”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t have anything to say about it. So her shoulders lift in a shrug and a faint smile paints over her lips. “What are you doing here?”

“I missed you.”

They’ve all needed time. She’s never told him all of it, what happened down on that planet’s surface while he had been on the destroyer. And then, a few months later, she was gone. Something she had to do. She’d be back.

That was three months ago. 

And now here he is, on this dreadful planet, standing before Rey Skywalker. 

They move towards each other at the same time, without having to think about it. Her arms loop rightly around his neck, his around her waist. They press together, too warm, but it feels like it always has: a missing piece slotting back into place. 

“I missed you,” she whispers into his shoulder. When she pulls away, he tries to not feel disappointed. “Let me show you around.”

The machinery for the moisture farming is, surprisingly, fascinating. And it’s nice to talk about something that isn’t war or death or First Order or who the hell is gonna run the Republic now because most of the Senators were blown up and who is going to trust any of them. They’re no Princess Leia or Mon Mothma, who he hears was fantastic. This is just weird rustic living. 

He hopes whoever his parents were or are, that they aren’t moisture farmers. 

She makes him dinner. He helps to clean the dishes. 

The room she lets him sleep in has old models of x-wings and other ships. There are spare parts buried in bits of sand, nothing that is good enough to salvage. The room vibrates with this energy of _more_. 

Luke Skywalker must have been some kid. 

\--

“What are you really doing here, Rey?”

“I buried Luke and Leia’s lightsabers,” she tells him. 

“In the sand?”

“Yes.”

_“Really?”_

“I don’t think they minded.” 

She seems different. Well, they all are, so that’s a stupid observation. But she feels more calm, more sure of herself. This is not the Rey he knows. She’s still there, the bright eyed girl from Jakku and the angry girl during the war. There are just parts of her that he feels but doesn’t know. He wants to. 

He’s always wanted to, and she was too wrapped up in her anger to understand that he wasn’t going to leave. That he wasn’t scared of her, but _for her_. She kept trying to be alone, and all Finn has ever known is working as a unit. As part of a whole. 

He feels that this is what’s happening now, too.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, cutting through his thoughts. There’s a certain flicker of grief that crosses her face, of regret and pain. 

He reaches out, across the table, pushing her cup of tea out of the way. He takes her hand. It’s warm and rough. He remembers the first time he took her hand, when it had been rough and sweaty against his palm. “Me too.”

“Ben saved me,” she whispers. Her dark eyes are downcast, lips parted. 

“Ben? Solo. Ben Solo, Han and Leia’s son? Our enemy? Who was hunting us?” Sometimes, Finn feels like his mind is splitting apart. When he thinks of Ben Solo, there’s only Kylo Ren. The ghost stories the troopers spoke of him in whispers during training. The feel of his blade striking against Finn’s when they fought. That mask.

But when Rey raises her gaze to his again, squeezing his hand, he sees parts of Ben Solo that are just Ben. It doesn’t change his opinion of him. The guy was a monster. And he is dead. 

“He gave me his life. There’s this ache, like a part of me has been hollowed out.”

He swallows. Hard. “Tell me about it. All of it.”

She does. And he does his very best to understand the things he doesn’t get. He doesn’t ask many questions, afraid that she’ll shut down on him again. Shut him _out_ again, and Finn doesn’t want that. 

And he thinks, while she tells him her story, her past, her future, her other half, he understands what love fully is. Love is not a continuous act of sacrifice for someone else, but it is a helping hand and a listening ear and an acceptance of some things that he can’t change. He’s not jealous. No, okay, he is, because _other half_ is such a serious notion and if Ben was alive… Finn would love Rey enough to keep an eye on a reforming monster so that she could be happy. And he would move on.

He can’t change who Ben Solo and Kylo Ren were to Rey anymore than he can change what Poe and Rose and Jannah are to him. He can’t change that her power is something he can’t exactly touch. He’s never wanted to change any of those things. 

\--

A month passes. It’s a hot, sandy month. Farming is hard work. But it’s good work. 

\--

A month passes. He begins to learn the names of the regular crowd at that cantina. They teach him card games and how to gamble. He’s terrible at it. Rey is great at it. Nobody likes to play with her. 

Trusk slaps a card down, rattling some machine parts on the table. “Where’s the wife, Skywalker?”

Finn frowns. “It’s General.”

“General General?”

He realizes how stupid it sounds the second Trusk says it. “Yeah, yup. General Finn General.” It only takes him another second for him to register that Rey was referred to as his wife. The wife. To his husband. His cheeks burn hot, and he’s thankful for both the darkness of the cantina and of his skin. 

\--

Rey teaches Finn to lift rocks. Small ones, at first, because he tried a rather large one and nearly took out the rear section of their home. He learns how to build instead of destroy. He learns to reprogram. He learns that he is not a Jedi. 

He learns that she has six different smiles and a storm in her heart. 

\--

“He’s still with me,” Rey confesses one night. It’s cool when the suns are down, and they sit outside. 

“He’s always going to be with you,” Finn says.

“No. I mean - he became part of me, when he gave me his life force.”

“I - what.”

“And his ghost--”

“Nope.” Finn holds out his hands, shaking his head. “Nope, I don’t do ghosts.”

Smile number five comes out, brighter than any number of suns combined, a wide grin that stretches across her face and reminds him of how young they really are beneath the war wounds. 

“Oh, so having him part of me is fine--”

“No that’s just weird. The Force is weird. Jedi are weird.”

“I just wanted to say that, if you kissed me, you’d be kissing part of him.”

Finn gapes. It takes a few moments for everything to catch up with him. Time, breathing, his brain. Rey’s cheeks are burning red in the faint light he can see her in. But her gaze is even, steady.

“Do you--” He coughs, because his voice becomes high pitched and he remembers coming into puberty all those years ago and how squeaky he sounded. He lowers his voice an octave. Manly, smooth. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

She takes her time, thinking that question over. He waits with a patience he didn’t think he could have in this situation, because really, all he wants to do is grab her and kiss her until they both run out of air. That’s all he’s wanted to do since the day she looked at him, _him_. 

“You had something to tell me once,” she says instead of answering him. “What was it?”

All those missed moments, all of Poe’s butting in and the near death, and his desperation for her swell up inside of him. “I love you. I always have.”

“The thought of losing you hurts me,” she tells him. Her hand is over her heart. “Here.”

“What does that mean?”

They stare at each other, and his body is twitching to move, and his mouth is itching to kiss her, and his mind is screaming at him to do something, say something. Her eyes are glassy, and he’s ready to face the rejection. He can do that, for her. So she can heal. 

“I love you.” Her voice is a whisper. “And I love him.”

Competing with a kind of dead man who may or may not live inside of her soul and also probably comes to visit when he isn’t around isn’t exactly an ideal situation. 

“I know,” Finn reassures her. He takes her hand and kisses her knuckles, one by one. 

One tear falls, then another. They make silent streaks down her face. “It’s not a competition.”

“I mean, I’d kick his ghostly ass.” His smile is fragile, wobbly. “Rey, whatever you want to do, I will be here for you. There’s no rush.”

“I know.” And then she closes the distance between them, her mouth on his in a gentle kiss, sweet and undemanding. She tastes of sand and soup and power. She tastes of love. 

He tries his very best to not think about kissing Kylo Ren.


End file.
